1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a messaging service apparatus and method More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing contacts through interworking between a messaging service and a Social Network Service (SNS).
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile communication terminal is a means of providing and exchanging necessary information anywhere and anytime. A mobile terminal of the related art is used simply for voice calls. However, with the increasing prevalence of mobile communication terminals, the features of conversation and information exchange through texts and multiple media have become important. In line with this trend, various messaging services, such as a Short Message Service (SMS), a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and MicroSoft™ Network (MSN), and various SNS services, such as Facebook™ and Twitter™, have been provided.
Although such various services have been provided based on different technologies, users may be provided with duplicate features and user experiences even though they use different services. In addition, because each service has its own features distinguishable from other services, a user should subscribe to every service in order to experience all the features, causing many burdens.
In order to minimize the user burdens, new services integrating such various user experiences have been introduced and standardized. Typically, these new services may include Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Converged IP Messaging (CPM) and Global System for Mobile communication Association (GSMA) Rich Communication Suite (RCS). Because these messaging services use different address books, there is a need for management of the address books. To meet the need, OMA has proposed OMA Converged Address Book (CAB). The OMA CAB enables the services to manage a variety of information with an improved network address book using the network storage, and to share inter-group information.
In a case of the messaging service of the related art among the newly introduced services, even though a user has subscribed to a specific service, if the other party has not subscribed to the specific service or other compatible services, conversation and information exchange through the specific service may not be possible. Taking this into consideration, an RCS service provides an address book management function, and may provide a function of notifying subscription/non-subscription to the RCS service. However, since even the RCS service does not share address books with other services, subscription/non-subscription to the RCS service may be notified only to the address book used in the RCS service. Therefore, if it interworks with the SNS, the messaging service may be provided with an extended address book, extending the number of targets (or contacts), subscription/non-subscription of which to the service can be (or is desired to be) determined.
Therefore, a need exists for a method capable of extending the number of targets, subscription/non-subscription of which to a specific service can be determined.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.